Cellar Door

The phrase ‘cellar door’ was held by Tolkien to be the most beautiful in the English language … he said so in his 1955 essay titled English and Welsh. I do find it strange, though, that so many people have picked this up and run with it! The supposed notoriety of the phrases beauty has reached far and wide. It is mentioned in Donnie Darko, a popular film of a few years ago, and there have been numerous references to it in songs, films, and the titles of various things.

I can’t find any literature on anybody actually linguistically studying the phrase to see what value it holds phonetically, or comparing it to other phrases that are commonly held to be beautiful. There is probably a good reason for this – it was just an odd comment by a writer who happened to become popular because he liked writing about elves, and there really is no basis for the term’s fame except pure coincidence and personal taste!

If I start a war here, I apologise in advance … let us know what you think!

Photo credits: Cellar door by Evan Ripley